raavenb2619

The TV show. It's been a bit since I've watched it (and this based only on the TV show, not anything else), so I'm a bit hazy on the details (and very hazy on the names), so correct me if I'm wrong about any of the following, but... Aziraphale is with Crowley (makes sense. this show is about their interpersonal relationship and we get a lot of chemistry between them, so I have no complaints about this) Guy who breaks computers ends up with witch lady (ok sure? they had some on screen chemistry in the show this is sort of plausible) Old witchfinder cult leader guy ends up with lady who shared a body with Aziraphale briefly (seriously? didn't he super hate/distrust her for like 90% of the show? is he ending up with her because we need a happy ending and it's not a happy ending if their are single adult humans? i think so)

Sometimes I end up in a situation where all the allos around me expect/assume that I’m allo and thus am interested in romance, dating, performing romantically coded actions, etc, an expectation that makes me uncomfortable. Now, I’d be happy to have a nuanced discussion on aromanticism, romance, and amatonormativity later, in the moment I just need to escape the situation as easily as possible. Most of the time I say something like “Actually, I’m aromantic, so [your assumption about me is wrong]”. Pros: it’s true, since I’m aromantic and their assumption that I’m interested in dating/romance/whatever is wrong. Cons: it promotes a limited, overgeneralized understanding of aromanticism since aros can still want to date/be romance favorable/like romantically coded actions, etc. I’ve run up against this drawback myself when friends are confused by how I could like a romance webcomic. Does anyone have anything better to say that’s also fairly quick and painless? (Something like “I’m not interested in dating” won’t work a lot of the time because people love to reply with “you just need to find the right person”/[insert amatonormative comment of your choice])

cough good omens cough

For me, it’s linking back to this Arocalypse post. Is it supposed to link to an external site?

Oh man, I’d completely forgotten about that. It always confused me, why could you only have one best friend? Why aren’t I allowed to care a lot about multiple friends?

Speaking of this, is there much consensus on a term to refer to the whole community? I’ve always used “arospec” and “aro spectrum” as a broad term that referred to anyone who fell under the aromantic umbrella (handle aros as well as demiros, greyros, etc).

I do this as well, often saying something along the lines of “you might you look into terms like X, Y, or Z. But if you don’t like any of those, or you don’t want a more specific label, that’s okay too.” I guess my guiding philosophy is to guess what information might be most helpful/relevant and suggest that (as opposed to every single identity and nuanced experience), while being positive, accepting/affirming, and emphasizing personal agency for choosing labels so that the questioning person feels free to learn, explore, and try out some labels if they want to, all without worrying about gatekeeping and gatekeepers.

These two links helped me a bunch, but it’s been a while since I looked through them so they might be predominantly focused on aroaces. This could be of use to aros who are scared of being aro I haven’t looked through AUREA recently, but there might be useful resources there. (Ignore my formatting, I’m in a rush on mobile)

An essay I came across recently about this, if anyone is interested

I used to think that I got crushes, before I eventually realized that they were actually squishes. It was useful to have a word that described what I was feeling, and knowing that other people felt the same thing and understood it enough to give it a name helped me feel more secure in my identity as aromantic. And I actually started (re)questioning my romantic orientation because I realized I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was a crush or a squish. Lastly, (and I realize this is very nebulous and subjective), I’m sort of just...glad that there’s a word? If there wasn’t a word, I’d probably want there to be one to describe this specific experience? From what I’ve learned from my friends, before the word “crush” existed, people were probably compelled to come up with a word for it; I think there’s a similar thing with squish.

I came up with another possible source for the misconception that all aros want a QPR, but it’s a bit indirect. The Tumblr community seems to be pretty fascinated with soulmates and soulmate AUs, but often times when aro bloggers (including myself) complain about soulmates being amatonormative, we get a bunch of people telling us that soulmates can be platonic (as if that helps anything). Maybe some people see this unhelpful chant of “soulmates can be platonic” and interpret it to mean that all aros want/have some sort of partner/soulmate? Put another way, I think many people believe everyone has a soulmate, learn about aromanticism, wonder how aros fit into the idea of soulmates, see “soulmates can be platonic”, and assume that the “solution” of how aros fit into the idea of soulmates is that aros have platonic soulmates.

There's a lot to respond to here, so I'm not going to be able to touch on everything. This video starts "Love. Everyone wants it." As you might imagine, I generally disagree with this alarmist, sensationalist video and the 5 other amatonormative assertions it makes without any evidence. The first video you linked made this assertion (and many others) several times without any evidence at all. People not wanting long term relationships is probably the biggest reason there are fewer long term relationships. I think the lack of interest in long term relationships is due to macroeconomic effects making long term relationships harder for people that it was a generation or two ago, not dating apps. Doesn't the prevalence of dating apps suggest that people are, at least, theoretically interested in romance and trying to pursue it more? I've never felt romantic attraction, but I have a feeling that most alloromantics wouldn't describe it like this. Or at least, a healthy version of romance like this. Birth rates aren't the same as marriage or relationships. Admittedly, they're often seen as linked in Western society, but I've heard that birth rates are lower in developed countries because of things like health care, and I don't think health care is greatly affecting marriage, relationships, or the way people view marriage and relationships. I mean, long term, unhealthy romantic relationships can also make the people involved less happier in life. This feels like a very empty statement to me. No, no it's not. Another unbacked assertion. Wanting children is different from romance and marriage. You can have both at once, or just one or the other, or neither. Well, there're the legal advantages you get from being married, like tax breaks, hospital visiting rights, health care, financing and loans. Some people want to solidly, officially, legally declare that someone is very important to them. There are also social benefits, like people not asking you when you're going to get married. I don't know what you mean by "logical" in this context. Do you mean that, one could use a rigorous mathematical framework to deduce that one alternative is better to others? That framework would certainly have to take into account that individual's personal tastes and preferences, because some people might want to raise children in a romantic relationship, while other people might not. It would also have to take into account the economic and legal situation, because adopting or raising children can be more difficult for unmarried people. In short, I don't think that anyone can say that one approach to raising children is better than the other in general; this is only answerable in very specific, well-defined circumstances. This reads to me like you're saying that aros have it easier in life because we don't have to deal with romantic/relationship problems, which isn't really the case. There are aros that want/enjoy/partake in relationships, and sometimes they have those troubles as well. And there are lots of blog posts on the internet about aros complaining about their friends meeting someone new and letting the friendship die. Who is this "we"? Humans as a whole? I think that there's a toxicity to how romantic relationships are expected to be the sole provider of all emotional support and fulfillment, yes. But I also think that people who want to pursue romance should be allowed to, even if they'll fail some of the time. I think that's up to the individual. Is society as a whole going to collapse because of social media and dating apps? Considering that online dating has been around since the 1990s, probably not.

I'm romance-repulsed. But it's a bit more complicated than that. I'm definitely romance-repulsed, because I get uncomfortable when I think people have crushes on me and when there's this expectation that I'll engage in romantically coded behavior. But that's not always my experience when it comes to romance in media. There's no hard-and-fast rule, because it really depends on the depiction in question, but I sometimes enjoy romance and shipping and romance-focused fanfiction. Some of my favorite ships are Sunati and Austen from Always Human, Cyrus and TJ from Disney's Andi Mack, and Link and Ilia from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I do get giddy/excited/invested/[insert typical alloromantic fandom behavior] because of the romantic content, and it sometimes becomes a second driving force for me to consume and engage the content (the first being my enjoyment of the content aside from romance). But on the other hand, if the romance feels forced, out of place, or I really didn't want to see a character paired up, it makes me uncomfortable and annoyed, sometimes to the point that I'll stop consuming the content. (Looking at you, Fantastic Beasts 2). So am I romance-repulsed? Well, yes and no. When it comes to romance that's directed at me specifically, there's no question; I am romance-repulsed. When it comes to romance in media, it depends; sometimes I'm romance-favorable, sometimes I'm romance-indifferent, and sometimes I'm romance-repulsed.

I’m very into friendship bracelets. As I write this, I have: The word “they” in capital block letters in the colors of the nonbinary flag, over a gray background A trans chevron A rainbow “mutating” chevron (goes back and forth between a chevron and a diagonal) A double-sided friendship bracelet with ace colors on one side and aro colors on the other.

"Just friends", "more than friends", etc Implies that friendship is inferior/lesser than romance "Love is love is love" I expect I'll get some pushback on this, so let me clarify what I mean. I've seen this phrase used in the context in gay marriage, and in that context, I don't find it amatonormative (but I do find it assimilationist), but I often see it get applied to other situations where it has problematic subtext. Here's an example: "'Love is love is love' is the slogan of the entire queer community!" Well, no, I'm aromantic and I don't feel like that includes me. "Ah, but 'love is love is love' can apply to platonic love too!" Well, no, I'm not comfortable with someone shoehorning in platonicism so that I don't feel excluded and dehumanized, especially when said person is probably going to turn around and be amatonormative as soon as I stop looking.

I agree with the gray being lighter. I'm very used to the "iconic" aro green and ace purple, so I'm not a huge fan of the green and purple you chose, but I can see it growing on me in the future. Another possible option, (and this might also help to distinguish it from an aroace-as-a-specific-identity flag, would be to use the alternate aro green (and by analogy, make an alternate ace purple)? I'll explain by referencing variation 4 from running.tally's list of flags. Numbering the colors 1-5 from top to bottom, I'd call colors 1 and 5 the primary aro and ace colors because of how widespread their usage is. (And also, most people use only 1 and 5 for making a specific-aroace flag). If instead you opted to use colors 2 and 4 (alternate aro and alternate ace), they'd have some sense of familiarity since they're (well, the alternate aro, at least) found in flags, but also a sense of something new (and if you wanted to read into symbolism, you could say that the choice of alternates is a reminder to talk about the narratives that most people ignore).

Well, between New month, same stuff, "Aplatonic is simply a descriptor used by some aro people to explain that they do not experience squishes nor desire to be in qpps/qprs" from Asexuality Blog (Tumblr), the two links from arrtypo, and the following aromantic wikia link, I'd believe that there's a reasonable amount of conflation going on. https://aromantic.wikia.org/wiki/Queerplatonic I haven't seen "squish" used as a term for partners in QPRs, but given this association of squish and QPRs, I can see how someone that knows that aplatonic is about squishes would also think aplatonic is about QPRs and vice verca. Is that really that bad of a thing? The "queer" in "queerplatonic" comes from "queering" the notion of the platonic -- operating outside of social norms for relationships that aren't definitively-wholly-romantic. Differently platonic doesn't mean not platonic. Trying to essentialize queerplatonic as some inherent essential specific thing, somehow separable from and totally not a friendship, is worse, in my opinion, than anything they're concerned about there, and can only come from the kind of thinking we saw with alterous, where people are embracing -- rather than disputing -- an across-the-board definition of friendship as a specific and limited status. In other words, fretting over queerplatonic being viewed as a subcategory of platonic.... feels... amatonormative. I think there's two things going on here. What arrtypo is concerned about is people using the amatonormative rhetoric of "just friends" and similar to discredit and invalidate QP attraction that allos already apply to their own friendships. Coyote, I think when you say "'queering' the notion of the platonic", you're using the word "platonic" as a much larger, catchall term, whereas arrtypo is using it as a much more specific term (likely implicitly contrasted against other types of attraction like sexual, romantic, sensual, etc). I don't think that worrying that queerplatonic being treated as a subcategory of platonic has to be amatonormative, because someone can interpret the two concepts to be different things while simultaneously working against "just friends" and similar rhetoric. (But I do understand why you would read it that way.) This is something I've thought about for some time, but probably deserves its own thread. See, this is what I was talking about. It's not that they're "not the same." It's that "friendship" doesn't have to be "just." Hm. I agree that arrtypo is being amatonormative by saying that. (But my earlier point, of wanting to distinguish between platonic and queerplatonic not being inherently amatonormative, still stands). My understanding of the situation is that someone coined the word "aplatonic", different groups of people interpreted it to mean different things, and now there's some infighting happening over it. As long as you're aware that there's multiple meanings and don't go up to people and say "you're not allowed to use that word the way you want to, even though you have in the past for some time, because I'm claiming this word solely for my own interpretation", should be fine, I think. Nope. I'm really confused where people are even getting this. Is it in one of the wikis or something? At this point, I think it's not really one source anymore. Which also means it's been in use long enough that saying "aplatonic is not about queerplatonic attraction" won't be received well by some people, and a more diplomatic approach is necessary. I think there's a few things going on here. I don't know if the coiner knew about platonic attraction at the time. If he didn't, it's entirely possible (though not a guarantee) that he'd find the phrases "platonic attraction" and "not experiencing platonic attraction" helpful in describing his experiences. If he did know, the previous sentence is moot. But I think that the fact that so many people have used the phrase "aplatonic" to mean something that doesn't exactly match the experiences the coiner described is evidence that the word has evolved. Sure, it doesn't mean what it originally meant, but I don't think that should mean that its current usage and meaning are automatically invalidated. I think, given the number of people that think that all aros want QPRs, there's definitely something like that going on.

My only critique would be to slightly expand this to read “a person who doesn’t completely and exclusively identify as their assigned gender at birth”, to make it clear that (for example) bigender people who ID as both a boy and a girl and afab demigirls can ID as trans.

I haven't experienced this personally, but I ran into someone on Tumblr who has, relevant posts here and here.

Re: respectfully indicating that a term is dated, maybe you could mark terms with some signifier (maybe an asterisk before the term) and have an approachable note at the top of the page along the lines of "This term is included for historical records and isn't in use today. If you think this is a mistake, please let me know"? In an ideal world, if you ever accidentally marked a term that's still in use as being out of use, someone would feel comfortable correcting you, and you'd periodically review the in-use terms to make sure they're still being used. The downside is that this could be abused on both sides; someone who doesn't understand or care that labels can be allowed to die might indicate that all of the terms are in use even when they aren't, while someone who doesn't like neolabels could mark them all as out of use even when they aren't (which also might lead to identity policing).

This is something that’s been on my mind a lot recently, because I would have loved to see it growing up, and because Disney seems to be slowly moving towards queer representation. Most (all?) Disney Channel shows involve teenagers who go through the process of figuring out dating and relationships, so if you were a show-runner/writer/consultant, how would you represent aromanticism? Would you have a character that figures out they’re aro, and if so, how would they figure it out? If they came out, how/when/where/why/who would they come out to, and how would it be received? Would you show/mention that aros can have any sexual orientation or even no sexual orientation, and if so, how would you explain that some aros distinguish sexual and romantic orientation in a way that’s appropriate for all audiences? Would you show/mention that some aros find it useful to talk about types of attraction that aren’t sexual or romantic, and if so, how would you go about explaining it? Would you show/mention that some aros can be interested in dating/relationships/qprs/etc, and if so, how would you go about explaining it? Would you show/mention the aromantic spectrum, and if so, how would you go about explaining it? Would you show/mention aromanticism as being part of the queer community, and if so, how? Would you show/mention different online communities, and if so, how? What parts of aromantic culture would or wouldn't you show/mention? What else would or wouldn’t you show/mention about aromanticism?

“I defy amatonormativity” is probably the closest we can get, but it’s still a sort of absence/negative in spirit. I don’t think we can get much closer, because (at least to me) a large part of my aromanticism is a sort-of negation or lack of fitting into alloromanticism, alloronormativity, and amatonormativity.

Ooh, I like that. Yeah, now that I think about it, most of my aesthetic "attraction" is better described as feeling/"appreciation", and that could explain the two kinds of squishes that I talked about in my initial reply. Squishes on a stranger is just platonic appreciation, the abstract thought (with no backing evidence) that I would enjoy someone's friendship. Squishes on a friend is platonic attraction, a much stronger impulse to do specific activities with the person in question. I'm curious, do other people find the idea of appreciation useful at all?

Maybe retitle it (again) to "What can we do in addition to making new words?" to shift the focus towards other actions that would target the underlying problem. "Why do we need a word for that?" can be read as implying "We don't need a word for that" which in turn implies "Your underlying motivation is invalid", but the point of this post is to talk about the underlying motivation and to find more productive ways of dealing with these sorts of problems than creating new words. Idk, it is a tough title. Here are a couple other options I came up with: "What makes people make new words?" "Why do people feel like they need to make new words?" "What's the underlying motivation when people make new words?" "What could we do besides making new words?" "What can we do instead of making new words?"

Yeah, I end up calling it aesthetic “attraction” because that’s generally how the community and the larger world talks about this stuff, but for me it’s kind of just “you’re pretty”. I’m curious, assuming that potential creepiness and awkwardness weren’t issues, would you go out of your way to look at someone? If you were sitting in a cafe and they moved behind a large object or behind you, would you adjust your chair to keep looking at them? Would you pull up pictures of them to look at? (I realize that these questions are sort of personal, so don’t feel like you have to answer if you don’t want to/aren’t comfortable)